blue_dolphin

And there's a Black Friday special price of $4.90 each!

@Anna N's poached eggs are killing me! Bacon jam & sharp Cheddar cheese toastie

I'm a novice, so my 2 cents is worth about that much but here you go.... First, you don't need any speciality ingredients to get started. Plenty of normal kitchen ingredients function in those roles in conventional recipes for frozen desserts. If you have specific dietary aims (you need to avoid eggs or dairy or make vegan desserts or replace sugar with other sweeteners) you might call out that out here for specific recommendations. I recommend reading @paulraphael's excellent articles on stabilizers, emulsifiers and sugars. I see you've gotten good advice above by the more experienced @andrewk512. I agree with his recommendation of Dana Cree's book. Excellent background information and each recipe generally offers the option of using a commercial stabilizer blend, specific gums or pantry ingredients like tapioca starch or cornstarch. Also agree with his recommendation on ingredients and a little drug scale for weighing. If decide you want to invest in some of these speciality ingredients, Modernist Pantry has a 17% off sale running through this Monday, 29 Nov and they're a decent one-stop-shop for this kind of stuff, offering reasonable quantities, generally at premium prices. They also offer their own stabilizer blends for ice cream, gelato and sorbet.

About fifty cents? OK, I was kidding. But here's a small hint as to the difference between Maryland & Philadelphia styles. From the article, Fear the Turtle or Eat the Turtle:

Spotted on Twitter today. An amazingly extensive Thanksgiving menu from the Plaza Hotel, 1899:

That's was kinda my first thought but the surface of every electric hot plate I've seen is made of exactly the kind of stuff you don't want in a candy pot, meaning they're usually a thick slab of something designed to retain heat and would prohibit one from making rapid adjustments, other than by removing the pan for a quick cool. Or were you thinking of a gas burner? Many of the high power types I'm familiar with are outdoor-only. Or is there a whole category of high power indoor gas burners that I've been oblivious to?

Looks like long fusili, aka fusilli lunghi. I can read Fusilli Napoletani Lunghi pretty clearly. Is there there another name you know it by?

Speaking of Mr. Parsons his writing for the Irish Times, here's a nice read from earlier this month, Russ Parsons: Thanksgiving foods at the centre of the table for American traditions

For my next trick, I made honey thyme frozen yogurt. The result was a bit sweeter than I'd prefer. I suppose that's partly the nature of a honey-flavored mix and thyme helped balance out the sweetness so I'll call this successful, if not at all perfect. This was a modification of the Honey Chai Frozen Yogurt in Hello, My Name is Ice Cream. Instead of infusing the milk & cream with chai spices, I used thyme. Almost all the thyme ice cream recipes unhelpfully give the amount of thyme in "sprigs" but this one calls for 30-40g for what's probably ~ a 1 qt batch. Thyme varies a lot by variety, age, etc. but at least this gave me a starting point. I used 20g for a half batch, ~ 1 pt. When I tasted the mix before freezing, I thought it was both too sweet and too much thyme. If I'd had more yogurt, I'd have mixed up some neutral base to mix in but I was out so I just froze it as it was. As mentioned, the end result was still quite sweet but the thyme seemed more mild and overall helped balance the sweetness. I wouldn't mind trying this again with different sorts of honey. I used orange blossom honey here. I've got cherry blossom honey that's lovely but delicate and avocado honey that's very dark in color and has a much stronger flavor that might work.

My copy of Joshua McFadden's Grains for Every Season (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) just arrived so I’m settling in for a good read.

@Smithy, your bringing up this potato salad cook-off again made me want some so I made a batch from a recipe in Julia Turshen's book, Simply Julia. I've made it often enough that I think it's now my go-to. I think the method, if not the exact ingredients, would lend itself to your situation as the mayo is added last so it would be easy enough to use mayo and the dreaded MW on separate portions. All the rest of the ingredients, save for a sprinkle of parsley, are added to the potatoes while they are warm so they get seasoned thoroughly. The mustard and vinegar also seem to temper the onion. I can't find the recipe online so I'll paraphrase the recipe in case you'd like to add it to your collection or just try the general idea. Boil 1.5 lbs baby yellow potatoes in salted water, drain and let sit a few min until you can handle them. While they're cooking, whisk together 3 T Dijon mustard, 1.5 T apple cider vinegar, 1 t salt and 1/2 t black pepper in a large bowl. Chop a large stalk of celery and finely dice half a small red onion and add to the dressing mix. As soon as you can handle the potatoes, cut them as you like, toss with the dressing and allow it all cool to room temp. Then stir in 3T mayo and a sprinkle of parsley. Season as needed. Serve immediately at room temp or refrigerate. Depending on my mood, I've added additional veg like red or green bell peppers, more celery, green beans. Yesterday's batch got a bunch of sugar snap peas.

I'll take "interesting" as a compliment, thank you! I've been having a lot of fun playing around with this gadget. As mentioned, I'm an ice cream-making novice but the small batch sizes are perfect for playing around. So far, the only downside is my own personal consumption of these treats! I ate the rest of the fresh ginger frozen yogurt yesterday. Here's a photo that better shows the incorporation of the crystalized ginger bits: The lemon ice cream with lemon curd is gone, too. I'm going to try making a honey & thyme frozen yogurt mix today.

I adore the combination of Chartreuse and dark chocolate. The Verte Chaud (hot chocolate + Chartreuse) might be better for the upcoming season but the ice cream was good, too. So's just sipping Chartreuse and nibbling dark chocolate!

Saw a recipe online for a double dark chocolate ice cream. It called for 1 c milk, 2 c whipping cream, 1/2 c dark cocoa and 10 oz dark chocolate, among other ingredients. Sounded to me like a brick so I decided to approximate @paulraphael's very well thought out chocolate ice cream. I had to make a lot of ingredient substitutions so it's probably better to say that I've used his method rather than his recipe. For ~ a pint sized batch, I used: 235g whole milk 35g Cacao Barry Extra Brute cocoa powder (instead of the excellent quality cocoa specified) 52g sugar (replacing the recipe's mix of dextrose & fructose which would have much better freezing point depression) 0.6g salt 3/4t Avacream (replacing a blend of locust bean gum, guar gum and carrageenan) 45g Trader Joe's 72% cacao dark chocolate (replacing the high quality bittersweet chocolate specified) 120g heavy cream 5g vanilla I omitted the soy lecithin in the recipe as I don't have it. Considered trying to add some egg white but decided to just skip it. I followed his method, scraping the mix into 2 Ninja Creami containers (~ 1/2 pint each) and freezing overnight. One container got a tablespoon of Chartreuse mixed in before freezing. The straight chocolate was likely too hard due to my sugar subs and maybe the stabilizers, too. It looked very powdery after the first spin on the ice cream cycle. Even after a re-spin, this is what it looked like: The one with added Chartreuse was perfect. I elected to thaw the straight chocolate mix, stir in a tablespoon of the unsweetened "creme de cacao" that I'd made by infusing cacao nibs in vodka for several weeks (or months? can't remember), then refreeze and respin. It came out perfectly. I think the cacao nib alcohol rounded out the flavor as well as lowering the freezing point. This was just what I wanted. Dark chocolate flavor, kind of like a rich ganache that melts almost instantly in your mouth. The Chartreuse version was also very good, although in a side-by side taste test, I preferred the straight chocolate with a small glass of Chartreuse to sip in between bites! I'll make this again.

The Ninja Creami is already an odd duck in that it appeals to those who've wished for a Pacojet for their well-stocked home laboratories as well as folks quite happy to make desserts from artificially sweetened and flavored non-dairy coffee creamers. You can get your Micellar Casein, Maltodextrin, Carrageenan. Sucralose, and Acesulfame from speciality supply houses or in a bottle of Coffee Mate from the grocery store 🤣 I'm a rank beginner when it comes to ice cream so there's much for me to learn from both grocery store and speciality ingredients. I'm here for all of it!

This is yesterday's breakfast. Crispy fingerling potatoes & crispy fried eggs with capers, olives & bread crumbs from David Kinch's At Home in the Kitchen. It was very good so I'm making it again today.

I agree on the price. $170 would make it more palatable. I have also avoided setting up a composting area because of concerns about attracting animals and insects. We are provided with green bins for yard waste but but food scraps are prohibited. Starting Jan 1 we have a new trash hauler and will be required to put food waste including paper with food on it in with the yard waste for composting. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will work.

Ha, ha, ha! I use Greens all the time. Making the black bean chili this weekend and the white turnip soup soon. The Silver Palate has gone back and forth. It was on the chopping block for quite a while. Went back on the shelf yesterday. The tomes may stay or go.

My cookbook shelves had become overcrowded of late. Cocktail books were already moved to the dining room. Wine book, books on flavor and other food writing were spun off to the other side of this room. I know I could weed some out, but they feel like my friends. So I decided to treat myself to a couple more sets of shelves, which were delivered yesterday: The shelves are made of reclaimed lumber and I thought they might be very different in color from the others that I've had for 10+ years but they fit right in. For the moment, at least, there's room for more: The books on the floor, beneath the shelves are on the chopping block, They're what I call the "tomes." Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker, Better Homes & Gardens, Gourmet, NYTimes Cookbook and others of the sort. They're the books I learned to cook from. I'd pull them all out and compare recipes to figure out how things were done, what steps, temps, etc were common and which were not. I don't use them anymore but I'm struggling with getting rid of them. We'll see what happens.

Sorry, if I wasn't clear. Your link worked fine for me. The link in this first post in the thread I shared doesn't work for me: But this one did indeed take me to the FoodCycler site: But it sounds like the FoodCycler you're speaking of is something newer.

I remember a tiny bit of discussion a while back in this thread. The link in the first post didn't work for me but there's another one in a post from @chromedomethat goes to a FoodCycler, suggesting that it was the item under discussion.

I'm not a cook or a chef, but when I participated in a UCLA study that involved eating a very low fat diet, "no added fat," were the key words. We were allowed to eat some fat-containing foods like lean fish and whole grains but absolutely no added fats or oils. I always figured that was dietitian-speak and wouldn't have thought to use it in the title of a cooking video.

Brussels sprout salad with mustard & toasted almonds from Shaya and tomato jam mini pie using tomato-chilli jam from Dishoom and the sharp cheddar dough from The Book on Pie I wasn't thrilled about that salad the first time I made it but it hit the spot today. Maybe too much dill last time? I don't have any fresh dill today and just used a pinch of dried. Or maybe too much dressing? I dunno but I'll happily make it again.

Bacon Jam Mini Pies on Sharp Cheddar Crust from The Book on Pie I used the rough puff variation in the book when I made the sharp cheddar crust and cut them into 4" squares before filling and baking. Bacon jam was @kayb recipe via @Kim Shook. The upper right pastry is the tomato jam variation, using the tomato-chili jam from Dishoom The upper left has bacon jam on the bottom and tomato jam on top.

Thanks! I've previously put the little ginger bits into popsicles but it can be a challenge to keep them evenly distributed so I was pleased that this worked I'd like to try them in a pear sorbet or something like that.